Monday, July 29, 2013

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to
rehear Romeike v. Holder, a case
involving a family of German homeschoolers who have spent the past several
years seeking political asylum in the United States.The family of Uwe and Hannelore Romeike,
backed by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), now can only turn
to the United States Supreme Court for legal relief.

The Romeikes’ legal saga began when they became
dissatisfied with the schooling that their children were receiving in their
native Germany. It troubled Uwe Romeike
that teachers were failing to control the unruly behavior of many students, as
this disrupted the learning experiences of his own children. Also disturbing to the family were stories
used in German readers that depicted devils and witches.These same books also seemed to valorize
disobedient children.

The family came to believe that German schools were
doing nothing to build the character of their children.And worse, they became to fear that the public
school curriculum would influence their children to question Christian values.

To shield their five children (whose ages ranged
from two to twelve when the dispute began) from such influences, the Romeikes decided
to teach the youngsters at home.But
they faced a significant legal hurdle in doing so: German law has prohibited
homeschooling since at least1938.Education
officials there have explained that requiring children to attend schools
fosters social integration and ensures that “parallel societies” do not
develop.

The Romeikes were prosecuted – successfully – for
truancy.Fines eventually totaling over
$11,000 were levied, and authorities warned that they might lose custody of the
children.At one point, police visited
the home, placed the children in a van, and drove the children to school.(A second effort to force the children to
school failed when . The next time, four adults and seven children from the
Romeikes’ homeschooling support group intervened.)

To avoid such conflicts, the family fled to the
United States in 2008 and sought asylum.Their claim essentially was that they were fleeing religious persecution
at the hands of the German government.

Initially, the Romeikes were granted political
asylum by an immigration judge who found that, as homeschoolers, they had
reason to fear such persecution.Judge
Lawrence O. Burman claimed that the family had a “principled opposition to
government policy” and decried the German policy as “utterly repellent to everything
we believe as Americans.”The rights
being denied the Romeikes, he asserted, were “basic human rights that no
country has a right to violate.”

The federal government appealed that decision to the
Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
the chief investigative arm of the Division of Homeland Security, filed an appeal
claiming that homeschoolers were too “amorphous” to be a “particular social
group” eligible for asylum.The appeal
argued that “United States law has recognized the broad power of the state to
compel school attendance and regulate curriculum and teacher certification,” as
well as the “authority to prohibit or regulate homeschooling.”

The BIA sided with ICE and overturned the judge’s
finding in favor of the family.“There is no indication that officials are
motivated by anything other than law enforcement,” the court held, finding that
there was “appropriate administration of the law, not persecution.”The board found that the Romeikes “did not
establish a well-founded fear of persecution or the higher threshold of a clear
probability of persecution.”

From there, the case then went to a three-judge
panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.Here, the Romeikes lost again, with the panel finding that “they have
not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school attendance law
amounts to persecution against them, whether on grounds of religion or
membership in a recognized social group.”Key to this ruling was the court’s finding that Germany applied its
truancy laws to all parents who failed to send their children to schools
outside their homes.There was no
singling out of the Romeikes because of their religious or political beliefs.

The family petitioned for a rehearing of their case
by the full court, but that move was denied.This sets the stage for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Michael Farris, the founder and chairman of HSLDA,
says that the group is backing the Romeikes because the family “deserves the
freedom that this country was founded on.”Farris claims that the Sixth Circuit erred in ignoring the
anti-religious origins of Germany’s ban on homeschooling. He also argues that
the court failed to acknowledge the Romeikes’ rights as parents.

As they move forward with their case, the Romeikes
have drawn attention from a number of groups backing conservative Christian and
homeschooling causes.The Eagle Forum,
for instance, has argued that if the family ultimately is deported, “The
shadows of the Nazi swastika, an iconic reminder of foreign-bred despotism
around the world, will lengthen over America.”

Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) has led a group of 27
members of Congress in urging U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to grant the Romeike family asylum. “A
decision to deny the Romeikes the opportunity to educate their children freely
is a decision to abandon our commitment to freedom,” they write.

It’s understandable that the Romeikes’ plight
resonates with such groups.Homeschooling is widespread in the United States, and it’s only loosely
regulated in some areas.For many, it’s
inconceivable that a family could be denied the opportunity to educate their
children in this manner, particular when their motivations are religious.However, the case is not really about the
protections for religious liberty and parental rights codified in American
law.Rather, it turns on the standards for
granting asylum, which are both different and far more narrow.

Follow me on Twitter

@shfrpeters

Obtaining copies of my books

My books are available for purchase through Amazon.com (here) or my publishers, the University Press of Kansas (here) or Oxford University Press (here).
Reviewers wishing to obtain copies can contact me directly at sfpeters@wisc.edu.

About Me

Educator at University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of four books on religion and law, including The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistance in the Vietnam Era (Oxford, 2012). Contact: sfpeters@wisc.edu.